Getting ready for winter or 51 cans of stew just in case

What time will give us (frosty winter, dangerous viruses, falling dollar) is still unknown.
Therefore, you are waiting for peace - prepare for war! You can start buying buckwheat and dry the crackers, but it is better to roll up with fifty cans of homemade stew. In addition to cucumbers and mushrooms, of course.

Let's start perhaps.

Getting ready for winter or 51 cans of stew just in case

During my almost 40th life, I managed to cook more than one ton of stewed meat. What animals and birds did we not make this blank out of?

In the late 80s and almost until the end of the 90s, such jars were especially relevant.

Since our parents at that time were leading a large farm, they drove cows, bulls, sheep, rabbits, ducks, geese, Indo-ducks and always several dozen chickens. Everything went into blanks.

From August to spring, a large cast iron (sometimes two) puffed in the kitchen almost every day - they cooked stew.

In my experience, the most delicious stew is obtained from mulard ducks and horse meat. But from wild boar and elk meat - not for everybody.

Pork billet is universal, thanks to the fat it is perfectly stored for up to two years in the cellar. Beef is also good stew, but rather dry.

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Quite a peculiar stew in a jar - rabbit meat. Well, maybe even lamb, if you forget or not add spices.

So, how to prepare meat for use and pack it in a sterile jar?

Tip # 1 - meat

For stew, you need fatty enough meat.

Ducks and geese for stew are cut into 4-6 pieces each carcass and stew together with the skin, but without giblets and heads / legs.

Pork should be taken with fat. But not the part that is for lard or the brisket itself. Ribs with meat can be used. However, a good stew is pieces of meat, which means that a ham or shoulder is taken.

Beef: stew from old cow meat will be dark, dry and take a long time to cook. But a bull / heifer for 1-2 years is the most for stew.

The same is true for other types of meat.

And one more thing: the meat for the stew does not need to be cut into cubes at once, the pieces do not need to be very small. Otherwise, during the cooking process, porridge will turn out.

Tip # 2 - dishes

Now it has become very "fashionable" to cook stew in an autoclave. In the village, such a unit has never been seen. Our stew has always been made in a large cast iron with a lid, which languished for many hours on the stove, and in the modern world already on a gas stove.

If you have the means, you can cook stew directly in the jar by placing it in an autoclave or in a large pot of water. There are craftsmen to cook stew in the oven. I don't know, haven't tried it.

We are somehow in the old-fashioned way, we are going along the proven path. Cook meat with spices in a large bowl and salt it hard at the end, then over sterile hot jars and roll up.

This is the most affordable way, and a beginner can handle it.

Tip # 3 - water

Put pieces of meat in a large bowl, almost to the very top. Pour in water. A 10-liter cast iron or cauldron will need about 0.6-1 liters of water. Perhaps less / more.

Important! Stew must not float in water! The liquid is necessary so that the meat begins to languish in its own released juice.

Tip # 4 - time

If you cook stew in a saucepan (cast iron, cauldron), then this is a very long and slow process. Stewing lasts at least 5 hours. And with large volumes of meat and up to 12-16 hours.

You can determine readiness by the way the meat leaves the bones and crumbles into fibers.

Tip # 5 - spices

Stew, like jellied meat, is always salted at the very end of cooking. You need to salt hard and even cool. Salt is always taken from the usual stone, coarse first grinding.

From seasonings, bay leaf, black and allspice peas should be added to the stew, but not more than 2-3 hours after the start of cooking.

And five more short rules for homemade stew: